BEAUTY AND DRAMA

Painted Lady in Alfalfa field, near Remsen, Iowa -------

We spent most of the weekend on the family farm in northwest Iowa. Although the variety of wildlife and vegetation is not the same as here in the Upper Mississippi Valley, there are still plenty of opportunities for a nature photographer.

All images: Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM

My brother-in-law Don gave me the hint about a patch of alfalfa next to his pig nursery, where hundreds of butterflies were feeding nectar from the blossoms. Most of them were Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), one of the most widespread butterflies in North America. Adults may not survive in freezing temperatures and so most of them overwinter in the south and Mexico. Their flight and wing beats are erratic and fast and it was difficult to pre-visualize how the photos would turn out.

Spider paralyzing Painted Lady butterfly

One butterfly got my particular attention while I tried to follow it with the camera. The insect suddenly stopped moving and remained still with its wings spread out. Having a closer look revealed that the Painted Lady was ambushed by a spider. While the butterfly was in a feeding frenzy, the spider used its chance and paralyzed its victim. Well, they all have to live…

ESSENCE OF THE SEASON

Giant Swallowtail -------

Summer seems to be in its zenith and I try to catch the essence of this season in light and colors. The good old Sigma 150, f/2.8 macro lens is still a perfect tool for this kind of shooting. To get the best out of it I shoot wide open most of the time, rendering the background with a nice bokeh. Focus has to be on the spot (eye and body) due to the shallow depth of field at f/2.8 or f/3.2. The butterflies have never a quiet moment and continuous-servo autofocus is the only way to get a sharp image.

NATURE CLICKS #382 - HUMMINGBIRD MOTH

It is not difficult to find out why the Hummingbird Moth got its name. It’s easy to to mistake this moth with its fast beating wings for a small hummingbird. The first photo also reveals why its other name, Clearwing Moth, has been used for this insect. They are a member of the sphinx moth family (Sphingidae). Most sphinx moths fly at night but the Hummingbird Moth is active during the day.

When I made the click for this photo a couple days ago I was actually setting up the camera for shooting real humming birds (see my post from yesterday for the outcome). While the Ruby-throated Hummingbird is a permanent resident here between early May and the end of September, the Hummingbird Moth is a rare visitor in the flower beds around here.

WAYS TO TELL THE STORY

Ruby-throated Hummingbird -------

The number of hummingbirds has suddenly increased and this is a sure sign that another generation has left the nest and tries to make a living between hundreds of flowers and our hummingbird feeders around the house. Some photographers aim to freeze every feather and shoot with extremely short exposure times. I’m in the other camp, I prefer to tell the story of constant, very fast movement and I let the blur of the wings just doing that. Both ways are valid and just the result of different story telling efforts. This image was made with an exposure time of 1/1000 s. Not really slow, although still not fast enough to freeze the wings, but just the way I wanted it.

ATTENTION NEEDED

Monarch on a Blazing Star --------

My German photography friend Maren Arndt knows how to make good macro shots of butterflies and insects https://marensfotoblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/04/alle-lieben-rainfarn/. She is a true artist and environmental conscious photographer. Her latest blog post has inspired me to put the Sigma 150mm / f2.8 and 1.4x Teleconverter on the camera today and try to hunt for butterflies between Joan’s flower beds in the yard. My best shot was the one above of a Monarch butterfly, an insect that is in big trouble, mainly due to the loss of habitat.

Milkweed is the only plant where the Monarch butterflies will lay their eggs. It is not the prettiest plant on the planet but we let the milkweed grow wherever it comes up in our property. Iowa has a strategy designed to help keep the threatened Monarch off the national endangered species list. To make it short, recreating habitats (instead of steril grass patches) can make a difference. Below are a few links to sources that explain why this should be a big deal for all of us here in the Midwest. If we can’t fix it, our grandchildren may not be able to enjoy this butterfly when they are grown up anymore.

https://www.learner.org/jnorth/images/graphics/monarch/annual_cycle_wheel.gif

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2017/02/27/iowa-launches-plan-save-threatened-monarch-butterflies/98492138/

http://monarchsineasterniowa.blogspot.com

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ia/programs/financial/eqip/?cid=nrcseprd889463

If you are still with me after looking at all the links (thank you, if you do!), here are some thoughts about the photo. First, it’s just a photo, and it doesn’t tell the full story. Sometimes I have to acknowledge that the picture alone is not enough to create the awareness a particular environmental case needs. The text, or like today pointing out to other sources, may make our brains working. The photo becomes second nature, it just supports the message. Still not a bad thing…

 

THE LEARNING CURVE

The buildings and structures I photographed a week ago at the Motor Mill Historic Site are a great subject for experiments with the new software plug-in, Macphun’s Luminar. One of the best parts of the old NIK collection was Silver Efex Pro 2, the software I have used for all black and white conversions since many years. Knowing that SEP 2 will not work in the future, because Google has decided not to support and update it anymore, I needed to find a new solution for my B&W work. I like the results other photographers get with Luminar so far and I try to find a workflow with this software that works for my style of photography. The key for a fast post process is creating presets that can be used as a starting point for other pictures. It is a little time consuming in the beginning, but it is part of the learning curve and with every image and stored preset the process becomes faster and is more fun. I rather spend time behind the camera than in front of the computer screen…😊

STABLE AND SMOKEHOUSE

Stable, Motor Mill Historic Site, Iowa --------

I was running out of time last night, hence my blog post with photos only. So here is a little more information that I found in the brochure of Motor Mill Historic Site.

The Inn at the town of Motor I showed you yesterday provided rooms and offered meals to farmers waiting overnight for their grain. The mill was finished in 1869 but was actually in operation for only 13 years. A farmer, Louis Klink, purchased the land in 1903 and farmed it for nearly 80 years. During that time the Inn served as a home for the Klink family.

My first image today shows the stable that is next to the Inn. It housed the animals of the patrons of the Inn. Native limestone from a nearby quarry was used to construct it. The hip-type roof was added in the early 1900’s when the building was changed to a dairy barn. We can still see the original straight roofline below.

Smokehouse and bridge

This building was long thought to be the icehouse. It was recently discovered that it was actually a smokehouse where meat was cured during the mid-late 1800’s.

The bridge in the back across the Turkey River is a 2012 replica of the 1899 pin-and-truss iron bridge, which had been destroyed by floods in 1991 and 2008. As mentioned in an earlier post, we have been at Motor Mill a couple years before and I had already seen the potential for some good photos at this location. Finally I got what I was hoping for. It is the light before and around sunset that really reveals the charm of these old structures.

So, what about the little bunny sitting in front of the smokehouse? Well, it was just sitting there, not the subject of the photo, but making the smile in my face even bigger that evening…

TURKEY RIVER, NORTHEAST IOWA

Turkey River, Motor Mill and bridge ---

As mentioned in a previous blog post I usually don’t take the camera with me while paddling a river with a good chance of whitewater passages. The Turkey River, and as well the Volga River in northeast Iowa, had a good water level last weekend. We didn’t feel like it would exceed our paddling skills and we went down with our kayaks safely and without any incidents (except our little dog Cooper jumped out of the boat a couple times when he wasn’t supposed to do it… 😆).

Today’s photos were taken at the Turkey River, at the old mill of Motor, a rural Iowa community that is now a historic site on the National Register of Historic Places. I always like to provide the sources of information that I use, so please click the following link if this is of interest for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor,_Iowa

We have been at Motor Mill a couple times before and I always make a mental note if I want to come back to a particular site and shoot with the right light in place. Camping at the primitive campsite nearby allowed just doing this and working around sunset with the old buildings of Motor, and of course the Turkey River, led to some new photos that met the expectations . More to come…

SUNSET AT THE BOAT RAMP

Joan and I checked out the canoe access near Motor Mill, Iowa around sunset last Friday. We had pitched our tent at the campsite and looked forward to paddle the Turkey River on Saturday and the Volga River on Sunday with our kayaks again. Despite heavy damage on trees and parts of the river bed in both rivers from the flooding about a week ago, both paddle tours were very delightful and we had no problems.

Some people had left their rental kayaks and canoes at the boat ramp and these made for a great story telling element in this photo.

STILL IN GOOD SHAPE

Giant Swallowtail, Little Maquoketa River Valley near Durango, Iowa ----

How would summer be without butterflies? During the last few days we saw a couple Giant Swallowtails, a Red Admiral, and one Tiger Swallowtail. Not all of them look photogenic. Some have missing tails or parts of their wings. I’m not sure who is in charge of that. Maybe birds tried to prey on them, but it is not so uncommon to see a swallowtail with missing parts of their wings. However, this Giant Swallowtail was still in pristine shape, with a wonderful dark color.

Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM, Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG, @ 1/1600 s, f/4, ISO400

 

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RUNWAY

I went back to the Dubuque Airport on Saturday. The pilots used a different runway for starts and landings, far away from the observation point of the Dubuque airport, and out of reach for a decent photo. I drove on a small gravel road that leads to the end of the runway and tried my luck again. I arrived there just in time to watch three P-51D’s taking off.

Most of the T-6’s trained in formations of four for the AirVenture in Oshkosh and when they come in for landing the photographer gets four chances in a row for a picture. I missed a few but I like this shot because I pre-visualized where I wanted to make the click, right between the two clouds.

When I took this photo I didn’t really know what I had in front of my lens. This is ‘Doc’, one of only two flying B-29’s in the world. If one of my valued blog readers is interested in the amazing story about this airplane and its restoration, here is the link: http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/restoration-doc-flies-again-180960367/

AIR SHOW PREPARATIONS

Last week the noise of airplane engines around here reminded me that the big EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin is coming up next week. As always during the last years the Dubuque Airport hosts a number of WWII airplanes and their crews to prepare for the air shows.

Aviation photography is not really my main interest but I always like to use this opportunity to practice handholding of the camera and long lens. The same skills used for shooting a moving airplane can be used in wildlife photography. All the airplanes have propeller engines and the only way to get a full circle of the prop is to shoot with about 1/60 s exposure time. This is easier said than done and the amount of garbage I have produced was much higher than during any other time of the year. Friday evening the planes used the landing strip near the observation point at the airport and this allowed for a number of pictures that filled the frame without any significant cropping. More to come…

All images: Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports Lens, @ 1/60 s

WORKING WITH LUMINAR

Lake Superior, Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada ----

We have this typical end-of-July-weather right now, very warm and way to humid for my taste. I haven’t been out much for photography this week, except for the daily “yard exercise” with the birds that hang around the house. But of course, I don’t want to post about our house wrens or hummingbirds every other day.

About a month ago I reported about trying out Luminar from Macphun for the post process in my landscape photography. Well, I really like it so far and decided to use it as a Photoshop plug-in instead of the old NIK collection, that will not be supported by Google in the future anymore. The Macphun website has lots of short videos that make it easy to learn about all the different filters and techniques. Luckily there are enough untouched pictures on my hard drive to explore the ins and outs of Luminar. And this is what I do right now to beat the “hot-summer-blues”…😊

This photo was made on a dark and stormy day in Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada. Lake Superior was in a “bad mood” that day back in September 2016. The dominant color was gray, and all the other colors appeared muted. Luminar helps to improve the tonal contrast and reveal the colors as they appeared in reality. I still have a long way to go with this new software but I like what it does for my landscape photography so far.

THROUGH THE FENCE

Red Fox (captive) --------    

This photo has nothing to do with our main activities last weekend. We went out camping to the Volga River Recreation Area near Fayette, Iowa and paddled the lake and finally the Volga River this weekend. It was a gorgeous tour and time well spent. The river had a good water level and was much faster than other times in July according to the park ranger. Unfortunately I’m not brave enough to take the D750 on a river tour with some whitewater challenges. With other words, no images from the paddle tour.

On our way home we stopped at the Conservation Park and Iowa Welcome Center in Osborne. Beside a lot of other interesting places, like an arboretum, a nature center, and a pioneer village, the center has a native wildlife exhibit. Owls, hawks, a black bear, wolf, coyote, and other animals that can’t make a living on their own in the wild anymore are hosted in this facility.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of animals in captivity, although I understand the value for education. I’m just not excited anymore. However, the light on this Red Fox intrigued me and making a picture with the fence between me and the critter was a challenge I could not let pass by…